


Cat

by Odamaki



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cat Sherlock, Gen, Kid John, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 21:37:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8225516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odamaki/pseuds/Odamaki
Summary: John's leaving home to become a witch. It's a rough start but a black cat seems to be on his side.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a tumblr meme (Also on my AO3 as Dark Things Happen at the Turn of the Year), posted here due to length.

“You haven’t got any black, you haven’t got a broom, you’ve got no money, no training and no familiar.” Harry heaves the brewing vat across the bench and ignores John’s pugnacious look. “What d’you think you’re going to do one you get-“ she pauses and then waves a wet hand dismissively. “Wherever you end up. Go back to St. Rachael’s.” 

“I’m thirteen and a half, Harry. I should’ve gone weeks ago. I’ve only got six months to find my magic or I’ll lose it.”

Harry stirs the mix in the vat and makes it clear in the set of her shoulders that she thinks that’s no bad thing.

“So wait and then maybe someone’ll pick you for a trade. You’re smart John, someone’ll want you.”

“No one but a witch wants a witch.”

John sticks his hands in his pockets and stirs up the litter of barley chaff with the toe of his boot. Harry and he have never seen eye-to-eye, and they fell out worse than ever when the brewery picked her out of the crowd of hopeful orphans at St. Rachael’s. She’d never looked back. 

Harry thumps the wooden stick in the vat with more force than is needed and frowns. Deep down they both know he’s only really come to say goodbye.

“Midnight,” he says finally. “From the green.”

Harry snorts and pounds at the yeast. “Fine.” She says. 

\---

John waits and waits. It’s lonely on the green and he’s nervous. He remembers coming to St. Rachael’s across the green when he was small; it had seemed so big and now it seems so small. He grips his broom and waits. 

At the last minute it’s not Harry but Bill who comes to see him off. 

“I made it,” Bill says, panting. “I only just finished t. Here-!” he thrusts out a hand and the package, wrapped in sackcloth, dangles from it. 

John’s grateful. “You didn’t have to,” he says, gathering it into his arms. Bill grins a gap-toothed grin. “I know, but I wanted to wish you luck, and gifts to witches are lucky, right?” 

Traditionally, they are. John squats and pulls the sackcloth loose. Bill’s been apprenticed out for a year, so to speak, working in the same orphanage they grew up in. He’s good at it; kind to the children and the closest thing to a friend John’s ever had. 

“You got me a cloak…” John says, blinking hard. “Thank you.”

“It’s one of the blankets, dyed,” Bill says, embarrassed. “But it’ll keep you warm. Is that your broom?”

John holds it up; it’s just a stick he’s smuggled from the woodpile, and brushwood tightly wrapped on with string. Bill lights up and touches it reverently. “Cool,” he says.

“Bye Bill,” John says, suddenly sad to be leaving. Bill thumps him in the arm and then tussles him into the cloak, pulling the hood over his eyes before hugging him. 

“Good luck!” Bill says, shoving him away. “Come back and visit!” 

John just nods, gripping the rough wood and focuses. The take off is shaky, but it works- it work! “Bye Bill!” he yells down, his heart leaping high in his chest. His cloak, still stamped barely visible with the St. Rachael’s logo, flutters in the night air. “Goodbye!”

Bill is far below, beaming up, waving like he’s going to shake his arm off of his shoulder. And then John’s into the clouds, and with his homespun black, lovingly given and a broom of his own shoddy construction, he makes his first flight as a witch.

\---

He sleeps in a barn, staring at the eaves, snuggled into the straw. He’s had worse beds. His cloak is pulled tight around him and he rests with one hand on his broom. 

‘No training, no money and no familiar,’ Harry’s voice reminds him. John frowns. He’s going to make it. He’s determined. 

Above his head there’s a flutter and something lands softly on a beam. John sits up. 

“Hello?” 

The owl turns and looks down at him, blinking. “Who?” 

“My name’s John Watson. I’m a witch,” John tells him. 

“Who?” The owl replies, scornfully. 

“I know, I’m new. I’m looking for a familiar.” 

The owl blinks one eye and then the other, puffing out its chest. “Who?” 

“Well, I don’t mind. Someone who wants to help me train, I suppose.”

“Who would?” replies the owl in disgust, and then, gathering itself up, it launched itself out of the glassless window into the night. Discouraged, John makes a show of sticking his tongue out after it.

“You’re as stupid owl anyway,” John says, and curls back up into his cloak to wait for morning.

\--- 

It’s too cold to sleep in late so John rises in the dark and, stomach rumbling, clambers back on his broom. 

He follows the country, the long winding river. It’s beautiful. John cranes his neck down and breathes in the sweet clean air of the free and open sky. The sun makes the river a long twist of silvery glitter and then there, in the pinkish haze of morning, lies the city. 

John is awed. It’s bigger than anything he’s ever seen, beset by towers of sparkling glass and the distant roar of vehicles and people moving around. Even at this early hour the city is awake. John comes lower, peering down between the rooftops. Few people think to look up. He sees shops and bright displays of goods, a park full of flowers and fountains. It is magnificent. 

Without thinking about it, he falls in love with London.

He lands, thrumming with excitement. He walks around in a daze, forgetting his hunger. He passes a café, full of waiters in spotless waistcoats sweeping between the tables, silver trays held aloft. 

“Wow,” John breathes. He steps back to admire it and is at once clipped by a cab. 

“Watch it!” the driver shouts. John grimaces, clutching his shoulder. The driver leaps down and shoves him out of the road. “Idiot! Keep out of the way!”

“Ow! Stop it.” John pushes back. The driver is taller than him, though not a man. He seethes and balls his fist. John does likewise. They brawl in the gutter, in a fight in which John gives his all and still comes away with a cut lip and a limp. The driver spits on him before climbing back into the driver’s seat and starting away with a yell. 

London, John is forced to conclude, is beautiful but not friendly. He sits in the park, sore to his bones and still hungry. He has no money, no training, and no familiar even for comfort. His magic feels further away than ever. A low whistle makes him look up. 

“That was some fight,” says the young man. He smiles at John behind his glasses, his round moon face the first humble thing John’s seen in London. “How are you feeling?” 

In truth, alone, cold and uncertain. John lifts his chin. “Better than he is.” 

The solider laughs pleasantly. His uniform glitters with gold braid. “I could use a boot boy,” the man says, looking at John. “The name’s Mike Stamford. What’s yours?”

“John.”

“How about it?” Mike treats him to a salute. “Surgeon General Lance-Corporal Stamford, at your service.” 

John hesitates. It’s a good offer. It’s an unspeakably kind offer, and he’s alone in a huge city. It would not be a bad job, he thinks. He could learn a trade, to help wounded soldiers. It would be meaningful and useful, and he’d have a good chance to be someone. 

Slowly, with a heavy gulp, he shakes his head. “I want to be a witch,” he confesses. “I’m sorry.” 

“Ah,” the soldier says. He claps his hand against his thigh. “It can’t be helped,” he concludes and then thrusts his hand into his pocket. “Here. When you’ve found a place to train, I’d like to be your first customer.”

John stares at the coins. 

“Give me a spell for good luck,” Mike says, and pushes the coins into John’s palm. 

“Thank you…” 

“There’s a hospital down there- St. Bart’s. It’s a hostel for orphans. If you mention my name, they’ll find you a bed.” 

“Thank you,” John says again, overwhelmed. “And I promise, I’ll give you the best luck spell I can do!” 

Mike grins. “I look forward to it.” He salutes again and then, checking that John is sure of where the hospital is, marches away, whistling. 

\---

John searches for a place to stay. More than anything he searches for a place to train. He has vague notions that there’s some kind of witch hierarchy, but having never met another witch, he has no idea how the system works. He’d expected, once he’d flown, to perhaps just instinctually know. Or at least to find someone in the city who did. 

The people he asked either ignored him or were politely baffled. 

“Ireland,” one old woman told him firmly. “There’s no more witchcraft of any quality except in Ireland.”

“I can’t get to Ireland,” John argued, in despair. 

“Then you’ll never be any kind of witch.” 

John walks down a long street, trailing his broom. His cloak is dusty and damp at the hem. He’s spent half his money already on something to eat, and is no closer than ever to his dreams. Perhaps he should have stayed at home. Perhaps it’s not too late to go back. 

Perhaps Harry was right and it’s too late to find his magic. 

Perhaps he should have gone with the soldier, and at least had something rather than nothing except this aching unfilled hope. He hasn’t even found a familiar. Pausing, John looks under a hedge. There are rats in London. A rat is not a particularly glamorous as familiars, but it would do, for a start. 

When he straightens he finds himself face to face with the bluest eyes he’s ever seen. 

“Oh!” John says, in surprise. The cat, being a cat, says nothing. It merely squints its eyes. 

“Hello,” John tries. “I’m a witch.” 

The cat squints more suspiciously. Its whiskers twitch. 

“I’m trying to be a witch,” John corrects himself, and then the words come out all in a spill. “I’ve started with nothing and my friend made me a cloak, and I made my own broom, and I fought a cabbie and turned down a job as a soldier, who paid me for a spell I don’t know how to cast yet. And I’m lost.” 

The cat rises from its haunches and looks him up and down. It slopes off a foot or so down the wall and then turns back to stare at him. The tail rises and curls up like a question mark. 

“Please,” John says, turning to it. “I need a familiar.” 

The tail goes briskly the other way and the cat drops lightly to the pavement before vanishing around the corner. John swallows back yet another hot gulp of disappointment. Then, coy, the cat’s head pokes back to look at him. 

“I’m coming,” John says, gathering up his cloak and his broom. “Wait for me!”

He limps after the cat as fast as he can, and the cat slips ahead, pausing now and then to look back. It leads him zigzagging down the backstreets, until they come out of an alley into another broad road and there, at last, the cat stops at a door. 

It’s black, unmarked and the lead in glasswork above it makes the shape of a bat. John catches his breath. “A witch!” 

The cat leans up on it’s hind legs and scrabbles at the paintwork, already much clawed. “Mwwaaaaooollll.” 

Then it sits, looks expectantly at John and then up. 

“This?” John asks, putting his hand on the bell pull.

“Mwaaoolll.” 

John tugs. Inside the house, a bell clatters, and then there are footsteps. The woman who opens the door has steel grey hair and a gentle face. If she’s surprised to see John there, it passes after only a brief flutter. 

“Oh, hello, dear. Are you a guest?” 

“Your cat brought me here,” John replies, suddenly shy. His lip hurts, and his shoulder hurts and his troubles in London have somewhat defeated him. He pulls his broom close. “I didn’t know there was a witch here already.” 

The cat oozes around the old lady’s ankles, purring smugly. She tuts. “You’re a naughty boy,” she tells him fondly, bending to lift him up. He melts under her collarbone, then scrabbles over her shoulder and trots away down the hall. She follows. “Close the door behind you,” she calls. “I’ll put the kettle on.” 

John shuffles in, uncertainly, looking around. The hall is wallpapered in a rich green design, covered in leaves. There’s an old table with a vase of flowers on it, and a mirror, which shows his own small white face. By the door, there’s a rope on a nail, with the bell at the top. Under it is a string of sachets in different colours. Witch things. 

He follows her through into a kitchen where a kettle is already brimful and steaming. The oven belches warmth into the little space. The woman flicks a finger at a hook on the wall. “There’s a peg for your cloak. Put it up to dry,” she says, shooing him forwards. “Your broom will sit nicely under it.”

The cat stretches on the table, showing his teeth and claws in an elegant, dangerous sprawl. He blinks at John as he slowly shrugs his cloak off. 

“That’s a nasty bruise, young man.” The woman says. She pours tea from a height into a mug and pushes it towards him. “Let me see what I can do about it.” 

John sits, his head in a muddle. “Thank you. I’m John.”

“I’m Mrs. Hudson,” the old woman says, lifting a bushel of herbs from the ceiling and picking through them. “And the cat’s name is Sherlock.” She pauses. “He’s his own cat.” 

She mixes a balm from a little china pot and a crush of herbs, and between plying John with biscuits, plies it to his wounds. She natters to him, not minding that John is too stupefied to answer. 

“- We’ll pop you in Mycroft’s old room. It’s going to waste up there. Plenty of books, but somehow I don’t think you’ll mind that. Sherlock goes in and out but I expect you can learn to share.” 

“But I can’t stay,” John blurts. “I’m a witch.”

Mrs. Hudson looks at him. “Bless you! I’m not. So,” she closes the lid of the pot of ointment and smiles. “It’s no trouble is it?” 

“But- this is a witches house.”

“The incumbent witch is… away for now. Don’t worry,” she refills his mug. “If the witch comes back, you’ll be ready to go anyway.”

John touches his head. “And this?”

“I dabble,” Mrs. Hudson says enigmatically. “Sherlock helps, if he can be bothered.” 

“Mwaaaooolll!” 

“Show him up, Sherlock,” she says, wiping the table. “I’m sure he’s tired.” Gently she touches his cloak. 

John follows the cat up the steep stairs, still amazed at his good fortune. The room at the top of the house is snug under the eaves, and as promised, full of books. John stares. There are books on herbs, and books on magic. There are books of spells and witch laws. It’s a true witch’s library. He sinks down on the end of the bed, which is deep and feathery, a far cry from his orphan’s bed or a barn full of straw. 

The cat sits in the doorway, all four paws together with his tail tucked neatly around them. 

“Thank you,” John says. 

The cat blinks, and seems to smile.


End file.
